


no mirror, no shadow

by crookedfingers



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: (intentional and otherwise), Character Study, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Control, flavors of Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9684194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedfingers/pseuds/crookedfingers
Summary: Damien's powers work even when he's asleep.There are side effects.(set between the end of Season 1 and Episode 32)





	

Damien’s powers work even when he’s asleep.  
  
Mark figured that out pretty quickly. It was easy enough to test: once he regained enough stamina to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time, all he had to do was lie in bed until Damien fell asleep, then try to leave. Or, as it had actually happened, _think_ about trying to leave. He’d managed to get out of bed, but then he’d just stood in front of the motel room door with his hand on the handle for a solid forty minutes before turning back, almost panting with the effort it had taken to defy his own (no, _not_ his own) desire to stay.  
  
Damien has never made any special efforts or taken precautions to stop him from leaving in the middle of the night, so he probably knows that people are still subject to his will even when he’s not exerting conscious influence, but Mark is almost entirely positive that Damien doesn’t know about _this_ : that after Damien falls asleep, Mark gets hard because of him; that Mark is hard right now, grinding his palm between his legs, trying not to move too much or make enough noise to wake Damien. He’s staring at the popcorn-texture ceiling, watching stripes of light from passing cars slide across the walls, his head throbbing with a terrible and irresistible want while Damien, unmoving and unaware, sleeps a few feet away in his own bed.  
  
Mark had felt sick the first time it happened, about two months into this little roadtrip along America’s scenic routes. At the time, he hadn’t recognized it for what it was, and even after weeks of regular food and occasional exercise, he’d still been so physically weak that just being aroused had been draining. And so he _hadn’t_ done anything about it; he’d just lain there in bed, curled on his side, too exhausted and mortified to touch himself but too aroused to sleep. It’d been a bad night—but it had, eventually, passed.  
  
But it’d happened again the next day, and the next, forming a reliable but unwelcome pattern. He’d always thought he was good at understanding himself, but he didn’t understand _this_ , and it chewed at him during all hours. It felt bad. His own mind suddenly seemed foreign and untrustworthy. He fell into an exhausted fog, barely aware of what they did or where they went during the day. He could hardly stand to look at Damien when they were both awake, and he dreaded the end of each day. Escape was forgotten.  
  
For several days, he was too tired to even _think_ , but he didn’t dare let himself fall asleep during the day while Damien was driving. Damien wouldn’t like that. He liked to have someone to listen to him while he talked, which he did almost constantly. He would notice something was wrong if Mark started sleeping all the time again, and he would want to know what the problem was, and Mark would be forced to give him an honest answer. So Mark had drug himself along until, one day, he couldn’t get out of bed. He just couldn’t.  
  
“Just give me one more hour, Damien,” he’d mumbled from under his pillow. “Please.”  
  
Damien had persisted, at first. He was always antsy in the morning, eager to get on the road, never wanting to linger. But Mark had looked and sounded so abjectly terrible that he’d relented: “Fine,” he said. “You can have an hour. But then you’ll have to eat breakfast on the road.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Good thing we don’t have to worry about the check-out time here. You’re lucky you have someone like me to take care of you, huh?”  
  
“Yeah,” Mark agreed, feeling a little spark of gratitude and fondness.  
  
Suddenly, something inside of his brain _clicked_.  
  
And, suddenly, everything made sense. The fog lifted.  
  
It was _Damien_ who wanted Mark to want him. Oh. Oh, of _course_.  
  
Mark experienced an immediate rush of relief so potent that he’d almost leapt out of bed and just run around the room. It was an unbelievable comfort to know that he hadn’t developed the world’s most inappropriate case of Stockholm Syndrome all on his own. But the relief was short-lived before anger and disgust took its place. Why should he feel glad about anything? It was a _violation_. Damien claimed that he didn’t use his powers to make people do things that were fundamentally harmful to their own well-being, but he didn’t think there was anything wrong with _this_? He was a liar, much worse than Mark had suspected.  
  
Then, abruptly, he was calm again. Realization and certainty settled over him. Damien had no idea he was doing it. Mark had peered out at him from under his pillow, at Damien slinging on his jacket, and known he was right. Damien just didn’t know. When he was asleep, his brain dredged up the deep, private wants that never came to the surface when he was in possession of himself.  
  
With the clarity of hindsight, Mark had realized that the problem had begun around the same time Damien had started getting, well, chummy with him: sprinkling their conversations with little pop culture references that included pet names like ‘honey’ and ‘dear’; paying attention to the things Mark liked; letting Mark _know_ that he was paying attention, and casually flaunting all the things he did to be kind and accommodating. It was so overtly manipulative that it’d seemed clumsy, transparent, and childish, but now— _now_ Mark understands that the sheer unsubtlety of those gestures had obscured something significant but heretofore unrecognized: that Damien himself actually _likes_ doing all those things. That he enjoys these warped versions of the caretaker role, the provider role, that he’s crafted and taken upon himself. That he wants—desperately wants—Mark to rely on him, and to trust him, and to like him. To _want_ every piece of him, the whole of him. Never in his life has Damien has been wanted in his entirety. He craves it, and so his mind has provided it in whatever way it can.  
  
Which brings Mark to this moment, three months since Damien dumped him into a van and changed his life all over again: lying in a motel bed, achingly hard, while Damien sleeps nearby. Mark rolls onto his back and draws up his knees, pulling the bed covers into a canopy over his lower body so that Damien won’t be able to immediately tell what’s happening if he wakes up. An ironic precaution. Thankfully, Damien is a heavy sleeper. And, doubly thankfully, Damien does not ever seem to want to be _touched_ —not when he’s awake, not when he’s asleep. Mark doesn’t want to think about what kind of situation they’d be in if he felt compelled to actually _involve_ Damien.  
  
Mark hooks his sweatpants, then his boxers, and tugs them down his thighs. His cock settles heavily against his stomach. God, he’s dripping. He takes himself in hand, biting his own lip, and begins to stroke. And he lets himself stop resisting the _want, want, want_ scratching at his brain, lets himself be open to it. It’s the only way he can get through this quickly.  
  
He sighs aloud, without meaning to, as his mind relaxes into the particular haze that accompanies Damien’s powers. It’s a pleasant feeling, to be honest; there’s something relaxing about having one’s inhibitions smothered. His right hand pumps steadily while his left drifts under his own shirt. He splays his fingers out over his belly and strokes his thumb back and forth through the coarse line of hair below his navel. The skin of his chest and stomach tightens into goosebumps. After a moment of unfocused petting, his left hand wanders up to his chest. He cups his own pectoral muscle—not very impressive after a couple years without physical activity—but the nipple that he rolls under his finger is sensitive enough to make him gasp.  
  
Mark turns his cheek against the pillow and stares at the outline of Damien’s back. Poor bastard, he thinks, with a perfect balance of resentment and pity. But it’s hardly surprising that this is where they’ve ended up. Mark is almost certain that Damien has never had a real _relationship_ with anyone, and if he had to guess, he’d say that Damien is a minimally decent human to be cautious about combining sex with his powers. He’s starved for normal connection, and here’s the result: kidnapping, roleplaying, subconscious longing. It’s all very Freudian.  
  
As for himself, Mark knows that he’s susceptible to… things like this. He never fully trusted anyone at the AM—but, even so, it’d taken only weeks for him to tumble right into dizzyingly strong attachments with a few people. Certain guards, certain medical staff. The ones who smiled at him, the ones who made small talk. He’d found himself obsessively anticipating moments in their schedules when he might see them; he’d wondered if they looked forwarded to seeing him, too; fuck, he wanted them to _like_ him. And on the days when they didn’t show up as expected, he’d felt strangely crushed, like the day had been wasted.  
  
And then there was Sam, his incredible Sam, with whom he felt a connection that was all out of proportion relative to the actual time (for given values of ‘actual’ and ‘time’) they’d spent together. It’s dangerous, all of it: the way he hates to be alone, the way he draws people to him. Joan had always warned him about guarding his emotions and affections more carefully, but, fuck, how can he? His very biology is constructed to connect with the most unique and intimate aspects of other people, other atypicals. Isolation is antithetical to him.  
  
Oh, his mind has drifted. So has his left hand. At some point he’s begun massaging the inside of his own thigh somewhat roughly, his right hand still pumping. Having sex with Damien would probably be awful, wouldn’t it? He doesn’t know how to have a normal interaction with another human to save his life. And he’s not—he’s not _bad_ looking, really, but he’s all rawboned, with a hard, hungry face. Nothing really inviting about him. God, he’d probably bite—  
  
Mark’s hips suddenly jerk, and he grunts in shock as he comes into his hand. His feet arch up, raising his heels from the bed and tightening his calves as the orgasm ripples through him. His mouth opens. Then he slumps flat. Another passing car paints a traveling line of light across the room, casting strange shadows. Mark tugs his hand out from under the covers and stares at it, dazed. He hadn’t even realized that he was close to orgasm.  
  
He fumbles for the box of cheap tissues on the nightstand between the beds and cleans himself up as best he can, then awkwardly shoves the crumpled tissues under the blankets on the other half of the bed. He’ll smuggle them into the bathroom later to be flushed away. But for now he’s too warm and tired to think about moving.  
  
Faint, unfocused _want_ still buzzes through his nerves, but the worst edge is gone. He’ll be able to sleep through the rest of the night.  
  
Poor bastard, he thinks again, not knowing which of them he means. He turns onto his side, facing the window instead of Damien, and draws the covers up to his chin. Poor damned bastard. There’s no guarantee that Damien won’t turn against him if he powers don’t come back, and he’s starting to think they won’t. Damien may not fully understand what he really wants, but Mark does: he wants to find Sam. And he wants to talk to his sister one more time. And he wants… he wants Damien to… Well, he doesn’t want to have to fight Damien about it.  
  
Tomorrow, he decides, he’ll keep his eye open for opportunities to take matters into his own hands.


End file.
